TEL enhances prober to handle mix of 200- and 300-mm wafersNews & Analysis 11/30/2001 Post a commentTOKYO -- In a move to increase flexibility and throughput in wafer-test operations, Tokyo Electron Ltd. today announced an enhanced version of its P-12XL prober, which adds a new sort loader, semi-automatic probe card changer, and an improved wide area probe polish feature.

ATE, IC-packaging gear, and other tool segments hit hard in Q3, says SEMINews & Analysis 11/30/2001 Post a commentSAN JOSE -- It's safe to say that the chip-equipment market was terrible in the third quarter of 2001, especially for suppliers of back-end gear, according to statistics from the Semiconductor Equipment & Materials International (SEMI) trade group here.
Shipments and bookings for all chip-equipment segments were depressed in the third quarter of 2001, but the back-end segments like testers and IC-packaging tools were especially hit hard. In some cases, shipments of automatic-test equipment (A

Electronics industry may finally have hit bottomNews & Analysis 11/30/2001 Post a commentThe long-awaited bottom of the industry downturn may finally have been reached, if recent financial statements issued by key companies are any indication.
A host of companies, including Dell, Flextronics, and Intel, have confirmed their earlier forecasts for the current quarter, a refreshing change from previous quarters, when revenue and earnings projections were routinely downgraded as the market continued to deteriorate.

Dainippon Screen teams with IMEC to develop ultra-clean processes for fabsNews & Analysis 11/30/2001 Post a commentLEUVEN, Belgium -- Dainippon Screen Mfg. Co. Ltd. of Japan and the IMEC research group here announced plans to collaborate in the development of ultra-clean processes for wafer fabrication. The goal is to create new single-wafer cleaning steps that will be four-to-five years ahead of process requirements in the chip industry.

Sematech warns of bottleneck for 157-nm lithographyNews & Analysis 11/30/2001 Post a commentWhile semiconductor industry officials in California upped the ante for advanced IC production technology with the rollout of the 2001 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors on Thursday (Nov. 29), a gathering of mostly U.S.-based researchers warned a group of Taiwanese chip manufacturers that numerous obstacles jeopardize a smooth transition to implementing 157-nanometer lithography.

Lattice prepares to enter FPGA frayNews & Analysis 11/29/2001 Post a commentAltera Corp. and Xilinx Inc. may soon be looking over their shoulders at Lattice Semiconductor Corp., which is planning to join the FPGA fray sometime next year. The company's newly appointed president Steven Laub called FPGAs "a natural extension for us, both customerwise and technologywise."

Fujitsu to close Gresham flash memory fabNews & Analysis 11/29/2001 Post a commentFujitsu Ltd. today announced its decision to cease production operations at its Gresham, Oregon semiconductor manufacturing facility, Fujitsu Microelectronics, Inc (FMI), by the end of January 2002, and to close the plant and liquidate its assets.

2001 technology roadmap packs some 'unexpected' surprisesNews & Analysis 11/29/2001 Post a commentSANTA CLARA, Calif. -- While it may not be a complete surprise that IC technology continues to accelerate faster than expected, there are some unanticipated conclusions in the new 2001 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS), which is scheduled to be formally presented to the chip industry here today.

Price parity evades DDR marketBlog 11/28/2001 Post a commentBoise, Idaho -- It turns out that Micron Technology's vow to sell DDR modules at parity with single data rate SDRAM DIMMS was a "campaign promise."
When double data rate chips suddenly became scarce and DDR started selling at a nice premium over SDRAM, guess who is no longer selling at parity?

Pentium 4 shortage expected to last until JanuaryNews & Analysis 11/28/2001 Post a commentA recent shortage of Socket 478 Pentium 4 microprocessors has analysts and PC component makers wondering whether Intel Corp. dropped the ball in its planning or if it is trying to manipulate customers into using more expensive, high-end chips.

Pipelined A/D and Quadrature transceiver simplifies set-top box designNews & Analysis 11/28/2001 Post a commentThe name set-top box, because of its usual location, is used for many related types of devices. Some simply allow a television set to become the user interface to the Internet. Others allow a TV to receive and decode digital television broadcasts. Others combine a Web browser with email, an Internet picture phone, video-on-demand, TV picture-in-picture, interactive TV, and other features. Analog Devices' engineers suggest a front-end topology that supports a wide variety of these configurations.

Power Control in CDMA Cellular SystemsDesign How-To 11/28/2001 Post a commentCode-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) is a viable cellular-system alternative to both frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) and time-division multiple access (TDMA) technologies. Aly El-Osery and Chaouki Abdallah of the University of New Mexico discuss a power control technique for CDMA systems to increase battery life and improve cellular performance.

New techniques re-time data signals for plesiochronous communicationNews & Analysis 11/27/2001 Post a commentIn large systems, where designs are typically partitioned into two or more subsystems, clock distribution becomes prohibitively complex. Each subsystem may have its own local clock. The intra-system interfaces require data transmitted synchronously from one subsystem, to be re-timed or synchronized to the local reference in the receiving subsystem. A communications expert examines some techniques for doing this well.

ATI and Nvidia set sights on integrated graphics ICsNews & Analysis 11/27/2001 Post a commentIn a move to expand their respective territories by offering PC OEMs a greater range of options, ATI Technologies Inc. and Nvidia Corp. are turning their attention to the underserved integrated graphics IC market.
With Intel Corp. as a formidable opponent, the companies are banking that their successes in the discrete graphics sector will translate into new classes of performance in the embedded space.

Micron and Infineon to launch RLDRAM next yearNews & Analysis 11/27/2001 Post a commentBOISE, Ida. -- The new Reduced Latency DRAM for networks and communications will launch production late next year, beginning a long life cycle through 10-gigabit/sec and OC-765 optical generation systems, according to a just-released roadmap.

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My Mom the Radio StarMax MaxfieldPost a commentI've said it before and I'll say it again -- it's a funny old world when you come to think about it. Last Friday lunchtime, for example, I received an email from Tim Levell, the editor for ...

A Book For All ReasonsBernard Cole1 CommentRobert Oshana's recent book "Software Engineering for Embedded Systems (Newnes/Elsevier)," written and edited with Mark Kraeling, is a 'book for all reasons.' At almost 1,200 pages, it ...